Ya to hell with the old days. At least we were well trained and actually thought about the other guy when sharing the air.

How about some scary stories from today, or yesterday or last week even... Here's mine....

Tracked perpendicular to line of flight and saw a 2 way dumping right in my face. Got outta that one with the hair on my chinny chin chin... Where the heck did they come from? Don't know but it was kinda scary after I thought a little more about it. I saw them in enough time to track a little to the side.

Same aircraft. There were 2 two ways in front of our 3 way and two 2 way student loads after us I believe. Gave it a good 8 seconds with no upper winds to speak of. I went by thier opening canopies at about 3500 and waved off as I passed them. I was in the saddle at about 2700.. High for me. As I think more about the dive we did have to chase a guy around a bit. Shouldn't have taken us off course that much though. Just glad I saw them when I did. Whether it was our fault or thiers or a little of both. (most likely) Close call...

Around jump 22 (have to check my log book to be sure) I got the bright Idea that myself and our mechanic (the person who got me started jumping) should try a Rodeo Jump. We didn't talk to anyone about it so we really had no idea about exits or dismounts. We practiced how we thought it should go while at work. After a week of "planning" we head to teh dz. First jump we do a standard two way exit with kelly transitioning to a side body grip then climbing on my back. He just laid on my back the first time to get a feel and didn't really "sit up" on my rig. Things went great we thought so we decided he needed actauly sit up and really make it a rodeo. Second try went great as well but he never really climbed all the way up. To dismount all he did was a "pushup" which put him into clean air and off he went. (remeber we didn't ask anyone how to actually do a rodeo)

Now we get to the fun part. Third time we decide he is GOING to sit up on my back. Things go well on exit and he climbs on my back and actually scoots up all the way on my back. We are haulin Ass NOW! Plan was for him to dismount at 5.5 so I could slow down and deploy by 3.5. at 5.5 he does his pushup thing again, he pops up then back down! I am thinking to myself THATS NOT GOOD! He does it again..he doesn't go anywhere (Remeber I said we didn't ask anyone how to do a rodeo) about this time we are screaming threw 4.5 and I am think Mother Fucker get off me! At about the same time Kelly decided to pull his legs back and roll off. (we should have asked someone how to do a Rodeo!) as he lifts his right leg it hits the air which swings his leg right smack into my face! Blood instantly covers my goggles as he is flipped off me. His left leg catches my legs sending me into a violent flat spin at 3.5k. (did I say I had about 25 jumps now?)

So here I am with blood covered goolges, spinning across the sky and the pyscho dude from Little Nicky screaming "YOU GONNA DIE!" in my head.

after 5-6 360 I hear my instructors voice in my head telling me REALX Check your Altitude is your friend. RELAX.. I relax check my altitude see I am going through 3 get the spin stopped and dump by 2 (lowest I had ever dumped).

Canopy check then check my face thinking I am going to be disfigured with all that blood. Doesn't feel to bad except the fat lip I can feel and start flying back to the DZ.

When Kelly kicked me last he saw was me spinning out of control. He never saw me under canopy until I was coming into land. He thoguht he had just killed me.

After landing and having kelly telling me how thankful he was that I was alive we both realized how stupid we where and LUCKY!

To this day we still haven't done another Rodeo!

Side note..as I was walking into the Hangar the DZO comes running out.. I am thinking he is going to ask me if I am alright Only thing out of his mouth is " YOU DIDN'T GET ANY BLOOD ON MY RIG DID YOU!"

(I know I am not all neat with paragraphs,spelling and stuff just deal with it)

Standing in the landing area at a boogie last summer I watched a guy spiral down to about 200 feet over the landing area, aim into the wind (even when the landing pattern had been established as a slight crosswind, thus cutting off numerous others who were following the rules) and land. He did it on every jump he made that day.

When I asked someone about him I was told he's one of those who've been doing that for years, he does it every time he comes out to jump (about once a year, give or take) and it wouldn't do any good to say anything to him.

Standing in the landing area at a boogie last summer I watched a guy spiral down to about 200 feet over the landing area, aim into the wind (even when the landing pattern had been established as a slight crosswind, thus cutting off numerous others who were following the rules) and land. He did it on every jump he made that day.

When I asked someone about him I was told he's one of those who've been doing that for years, he does it every time he comes out to jump (about once a year, give or take) and it wouldn't do any good to say anything to him.

Was jumping a lot at a French DZ this summer. One day I saw one of the experienced local jumpers spiral down to land... on the runway... right in front of the Porter that was coming in to land. He just managed to put down his canopy and hit the deck as the Porter pulled up to avoid hitting him. It flew right above hime and landed with the right wheel first. I thought for a second I was going to see it flip over, but it just settled on both wheels and rolled to a stop.

When I asked someone about him I was told he's one of those who've been doing that for years, he does it every time he comes out to jump (about once a year, give or take) and it wouldn't do any good to say anything to him.

There was a guy like that at Eloy one time. He would'nt listen to anybody tell him different. Then one day he spiraled a little too low and he is not here anymore.

Alright here goes, this past weekend as 2 otters had landed and had taxi'd to the loading area to load, a student canopy. Hold on a minute. There was about one otters distance between the two otters. As this student canopy. was travelling toward the 4 spinning props. I was in a parking lot looking sort of down hill towards the 2 otters which were almost looking straight at me as this student canopy which i'm seeing a side view of, is headed right for disaster. Wanted to look away but could'nt. Hoping the student was going to turn while still high enough to survive and miss the props. Well the student did'nt turn away. Instead , the student flew the parachute directly in between the two running otters, an up jumper ran between the otters grabbed the student and drug the student to a safer area. Too much entertainment, student was referred to bowling alley for lessons other than skydiving.

..at about 500' I was flying next to & a little above a HP canopy whose pilot was watching the ground . This pilot hook turned into me without looking passing just beneath my automatically raised legs. I could have easily touched the topskin .

Somehow expecting this to happen made it turn out OK . Said pilot had no idea we had come so close to trouble.

heres one that happened yesterday. Im on a load, and go looking for my gear. Its just an old black Dolphin. How many of those have you seen ? I look literally everywhere.....its gone. None of the packers have seen it.....its just gone. I find another black Dolphin but its not mine. This one has an RSL and an AAD.....mine does not. Easy to identify the difference. Nobody steals Dolphins.

I ask one of the kids sitting by this other Dolphin, who owns this? "Oh...its that Jerry guys rig" "ok, where is he?" "He just went up on a load" You see where this is going, right ? The newbie, without even looking took my rig strapped it on and got in the Caravan. Needless to say.....i'm quite a bit bigger than he is and he almost fell out of the rig in a sit on that jump.

What would he have done if it had a little hi-po canopy of some sort in it instead of my Spectre?

Anyway....this guy gets down and the instructor in me appears. I chew his ass , not for taking my gear, but for not checking it over before putting it on. If he had.....he would have seen the obvious difference...CYPRES etc. Now heres the clincher.....he got pissed and loud because I called him on it. He almost went home with an ass whooping. We worked it out and shook hands.

Finally an all purpose scary-story thread! Great for wasting time, writing or reading.

Regarding the kid who grabbed the wrong rig:

In reply to:

I chew his ass , not for taking my gear, but for not checking it over before putting it on.

Even though one may think "the kids today...", it reminds me of a story from the 80s, from the rigger I apprenticed with:

This rigger does some work on a customer's gear, repacks the reserve, and leaves the gear at the DZ for pickup. The customer later comes by, gets the rig, and goes jumping. Maybe a week or two later the customer sees the rigger again and says, "I want to pay for the work, but I didn't see a bill when I got the rig back. How much do I owe you?"

I did a two way with my brother a few years ago. We had been jumping the same amount of time but I had c. 120 jumps and he had about 30. It was his first jump in a while so we just did a 2 way instead of the 4 way two others wanted to do. Uneventful jump. i tracked off and pulled at about 3300, in the saddle at just under 3. Waved off, nothing around. As I reached up to unstow my slider one of the two guys from the next two way fell past me, in freefall, on his back. he was close enough for me to see the surprised look on his face as he zoomed past at all of about 3 metres.

Not sure whose fault the positioning thing was even now, they swear they left it 10+ seconds, but you probably shouldn't be in freefall upside down at under three grand... One of my best mates too.

in reply to "I never cease to be amazed by our sport and the new group of people entering it. " ..........

Airmanship seems to have taken a serious plunge in a negative direction.

We used to dodge people that needed to wear a hard-hat in free-fall cause it showed how freakin' dangerous they were. Now it's the opposite. Any -one silly enough not to wear a hard-hat on a mixed rel load needs reminding how dangerous all those little ground hungry buzz bombs can be.

At Couch this year, I had just crawled out of my tent and heard canopy's opening. I looked up and saw a spinning main. After about 5 or 6 rotations, CHOP, and then watched him get stable and deploy his reserve at about 1000ft or lower right over the water tower. I thought the first thing I'm going to see this morning is someone go in. Reserve opened fine and then he turned into the wind and landed behind the water tower. I also watched some guy bounce off a car while landing in the tents, dumbass, there is a huge landing area there.

Just sarcastic, how the hell do you put the wrong rig on if it's not IDENTICAL & it not be your own dime.

Quote:

Yeah...makes you really wonder about that persons general awareness overall!

...Don't know about your 'Mushroom Dude', but in the old dayz...I had one of those cloth ribbons with~ "Training Aid-DO NOT JUMP" sewn on the main riser where it was easily seen...for some reason, not one ever messed with MY gear!

Jimbo, It's awesome you went into the instructor mode. I am very surprised the DZ did not set this person straight yet as he is clearly in need of an attitude adjustment.

------------------------------------------------------- Troy....I told the DZO, who in turn called the plane. He told the pilot to tell this Jerry guy he had the wrong rig on. He jumped it anyway. When he got down the DZO knew I could handle it , so he left me alone.

Fresh out of AFF and not quite to my "A" License I went up for a solo. On the same load is a close friend I started AFF with. He was in the habit of opening a little lower than I did at that point so he usually exited first. Well today I wanted him to tell me how my exit looked so I would go first.

The dive was uneventful. However, when I dumped at the planned 5k (which we both agree'd to) and looked up to watch my main open. "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm wazzat body in free fall doing RIGHT THERE???" I actually heard and felt the sound as my buddy whizzed by me and my still snivleing canopy close enough I could have kicked him...

The bigger realization was that I either slid under him or he slid over me in free fall. Because at opening he actually ended up back up jump run further than me. Just goes to show at that level you have no idea how much you are really moving around in the sky. I wont touch on the alti awareness thing either. Embarrassing story to tell to say the least. Scary as hell ta boot... Deffinately lucky to be alive.... And one of the driving forces behind me being such a huge seperation nazi...